Wednesday, November 26, 2008

So it seems the idiocy of binary sex/gender conformism has decided that Hitler and Stalin was right and that 'undesirables' must be sterilised.

But the 'undesirable' blokes are challenging that evil idiocy.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24699313-2702,00.html

Awww... the pooor widdle folk on the board can't handle that the possibility potentially exists that someone considered legally a man may get prgnant and so deny them their due recognition.

Tough!

Reproductive rights are Human Rights. Belonging to all. And requiring sterilisation to get legal recognition, rights and access to essential services is nothing short of, no different from, damn well is literally coerced, ie forced sterilidation.

My heart and best wishes go out to those two blokes and I hope they soundly win their case.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

It always disheartens me when I read the vitriolic rants of many groups who try and divorce themselves from other groups of people.

From Julie Bindel to the writings of many amongst the HBS groups and many many others.

When people write about Transgender in this vein they either attack it as some form of ideological theory or they try and justify one group of people being considered legitimate and others not.

It's saddening and its nonsensical.

After all it does not matter if there is or is not a causal relationship between Intersex and Transexuals biologically when it comes to the Human Rights Issues of both groups.

It does not matter if 'behaviourists' as us crossdressers are being called by some are biologically determined as such (please, please read up on the genetic connections to behaviour you folk because you seem to think that no behaviour is biologically determined and thats just not borne out by nature at all, and there is even transgender behaviours in animals) and transexuals are biologically determined or if neither is or both is.

Because Human Rights do not stem from Biological causation. They stem from presumptions of intrinsic equality and liberty. Nothing more is needed.

As an ideology which it does not seem to be except in the arguments of opponents of its existence, Transgender should be as subject to all the riguers of science as all other ideologies... which often enough is none at all rather unfortunately.

As a theory used to explain a phenomenon indeed science can and should be involved.

As a social and political movement it needs no other justification than Basic Human Rights and must also be judged and modified by those rights equally.

As a culture the same is true.

So at the end of the day we should all be judged by our adherance to the basic principles of human rights. Its not so hard really.

No amount of slinging the word 'behaviourist' at crossdressers, drag queens, pre-ops, non-ops or what-have-you will ever reduce the real legitimacy of any one of those people or the legitimacy of the way they dress or the way they identify themselves or what basic civil rights they have.

No Cissexual Straight Man or Woman, No Gay or Lesbian Straight-Acting or otherwise, No Transexual of any level or form of opperations or age of transition is in any way better, more real, more legitimate than any crossdresser. And no crossdresser no matter how conservatively dressed is in any way better than a fetishist or genderqueer or drag queen.

The hair-splitting bigotry is truly pathetic.Every single person who practices such arguments of exclusion delegitimises their own claims to equal rights if they are correct or successful in their arguments. They all shoot themselves in the foot because to justify their bigotry they toss out the very principle of equality which is the only valid reason they too have human rights.

We are all human. We all deserve the same rights. The same protection from abuse. The same access to healthcare including body-modification if we decide that is best for us and to protection from body modification if we decide (or before we are able to decide) that it is right for us. We all deserve protection from discrimination. The same access to essential servics, public amenities, safety, the law, public office and representatio and on and on.

No matter what differences you can point to our blood is still red.And where our issues are the same, similar, related or intersecting we all are still equals. We all are as legitimate as each other.

Transgender, by any other name, by any causation, would still be legitimate.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Here is a message I sent to Julie Bindel via facebook. I have no idea is she's read it. She has not yet replied but I expect she gets a lot of messages these days. Still I hope others might find it interesting.

You see I think it's vital not just to tell people they are wrong but to explain why they are wrong to them and then to give them the opportunity to realise their mistake and to change their views.

We must always give people opportunities to redeem themselves and I'm sure Julie Bindel though she was doing the right thing, that she had no idea where she crossed the line from attempting to protect people from being railroaded into SRS (good) to preventing people from getting SRS (ver very bad) especially as I'm sure she does not understand what doing the latter actually means in Human Rights terms.

So this is what I have to say to Julie Bindel:Hi.

Regarding Human Rights, Bodily Autonomy and Transgender.

Doesn't the human right of Bodily Autonomy aka Somatic Soverignty wherein every person has the right to do with their body whatever they wish and to refuse consent to anything being done to their body no matter the reason mean you should change some of your stated views on SRS access for Transexuals?

Now I'd like to point out that the same right is the explanation of what makes a whole host of things right or wrong

Rape and a Jehovahs Wittness forced to undergo a life-saving blood transfusion are both wrong according to this argument because each involves disregarding lack of consent regarding the body.

The right to Abortion comes from Bodily Autonomy too.

This means that just as people have a right to body-alteration from ear piercing, tattooing, cosmetic surgery, ritual initiation scarrification and genital modifications like circumcision, penile subincision and SRS.

It also means that no-one should be forced to undergo any of those procedures or coerced into doing so.

So then if your position is that no-one should HAVE to undergo SRS in order to obtain fair treatment, legal recognition and access to essential services then you'd be consistent with this right.

But if you say that people should NOT have access to the procedure or that access should be somehow restricted then you are arguing counter to the Human Right of Bodily Autonomy.

And if Bodily autonomy is not a basic human right then abortion can not be justified under human rights, nor protecting children (male and female both) from circumcision either and many many other things.

I do hope you ponder this aspect of Human Rights as certainly your views on SRS as are being reported are contrary to the Yogyakarta Principles and Bodily Autonomy, but with such a very small clarification could be a progressive and strong position in favour of Bodily Autonomy. All by ensuring you advocate for unrestricted access to SRS but no requirement at all for it!

Where it all depends on the individuals right to choose without coercion either way.

If however there is a flaw in my reasoning please do point it out as understanding these Human Rights issues is important to me.

Regards,Battybattybats

I hope she has read it, I hope she thinks about what it means.You see by saying people do not have the right to do anything they want with and to their own bodies including refusing anything anyone else wants to do to them you unravel the fundamental foundation of all human rights. It is the most basic principle, the core, the root, the source of all Human Rights, Civil Rights and of all the positive gains in social justice of the last several centuries.

Without that basic right rape is no longer universally wrong but only wrong if those in political power or cultural/religious authority say so. The basis of Abortion as a right is the mothers capacity to do with her body what she wants, whether she chooses to continue to carry or not the child to term. I could go on listing examples but hopefully everyone can grasp it already.

So as Julie Bindel considers herself an advocate for Human Rights I'm sure that once she understands what it is she's been arguing for she'll modify her views accordingly. Because I'm sure she thought she was arguing for protecting peoples right to choose, to not be shoehorned into SRS, but in fact she's been arguing for an end to the basic fundamental principle of human rights she thought she was protecting, a persons right to choose.

In her attempts to defend it she crossed the line and called for the destruction of the ideal she thought she was protecting, presumably by looking at the situation too narrowly and missing the big picture, the consequence of how far she took her argument.

But it's easy to bring her views into line with Basic Human Rights, with Bodily Autonomy, with every persons right to choose...

She just has to say no-one should need SRS or hormones or anything else to get all the legal rights recognition and services that any other citizen gets including full recognition as their self-identified sex/gender.

And say that also no-one should be denied access to SRS if they want it.

That way she supports choice. That way she supports Human Rights.And if she does so we should support her, and if she does not we should keep trying to explain it to her.

Oh and in other news it seems that according to reports Jim Carey is a Crossdresser, that the occassion of his wearing his partners swimsuit was not isolated.

Well we need more people out of the closet including celebrities so I hope soon to be saying "Good on you!"

But before I celebrate this I'm waiting for the apology. You know... for the Transphobia in Ace Ventura... so when he gives that apology I'll praise him and until he does i'll say:

"Jim Carey, your an (extreme expletive) hypocrit!"

These aren't complex things though it takes a little strencth of character to admit a wrongdoing intentional or otherwise or a mistake in an argument.C'mon Julie, c'mon Jim. It's the right thing to do.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

So in case I'm unable to post on the day and also to ensure that anyone reading this has a chance at learning of it in advance I'm posting on it imediately!

In my experience Intersex people are rendered even more invisible in Western Culture than Transgender people with few people knowing much at all about it. And yet considering what is done to children every year, the horrificaly unethical 'normalistion' surgery performed on children unable to give consent in Western countries where people react with horror at female 'circumcision' in other parts of the world this should be an issue that everyone knows about.

So please go here: http://www.intersexualite.org/ISD.html and sign the petition.

And the next person you see making or drinking a cup of coffee? Tell them about how horrible you think that surgery is and how the poor kids should be let grow up to decide for themselves what they are and what if anythings should be done to their genitals. Mention the petition and that the 8th is Intersex Solidarity Day.

And at the water cooler, talk to someone about it there too.

If you take a taxi, tell the driver what you think!

Bring the subject up in every conversation you can.

How many children are goin under the knife in the next four days? Are you going to just let that happen? Or will you help spread the awareness of that outrage so it will be stopped?

Sunday, November 2, 2008

It's a phrase that seriously rankles a lot of people. But one a lot of people use.

On some crossdressing forums its considered quite the no-no as many wives and girlfriends feel quite offended that some consider that a TG person might look more female than a cissexual female or more attractive as a female than one (so far on the forums I've explored it doesn't seem to be as big an offense for boyfriends and husbands of FtMs but that may not be the case and please correct me if I'm in error on that). Some have argued that the actuallity is that some TG folk look more feminine than many Cis females, some CDs find it outrageous that any CD considers themselves more female than any female no matter how naturally masculine and the conversations tend to fall apart as people struggle to defend their own identities from the threat that peoples judgement of anothers appearance seems to constitute to them.

I could go into an analysis of what it means for many cis womens self identity if a crossdresser does look better or more female and the way that seems to speak of a lack of value of masculine physical traits in cissexual women, but thats not the point I want to make today.

See one thing I note in most cases where members of the general public respond with the phrase "You look better than..." in it's varients that most seem to fail to consider..

A lot of the time the TG person did not 'pass' and still got that compliment!

So what does this mean?It means that these people see that the person is trans and yet still say they are good looking or attractive.

That means there must be qualities of Transgender Beauty that are utterly independant of strict masculine or feminine traits or which exist because of the mixture of these.

Now that many people can find androgyny attractive or fashionable is nothing new, their have ben trends in fashion for centuries where aspects of male or female fashion swap over and there have been plenty of people who've had success with a presentation that sits solidly between standard presentation of male and female.

But neither of those is what I mean. Because in the cases I'm referring to, the transgender person is clearly presenting strongly in a way that is, culturally, female or male, who is nevertheless perceived to be anatomically not matching that presentation and who yet is perceived to be attractive in that state.